Promoting Sustainabiliy In Engineering Through EPICS Program

Published in: Global Partnerships for Development and Engineering Education: Proceedings of the 15th LACCEI International Multi-Conference for Engineering, Education and Technology
Date of Conference: July 19-21, 2017
Location of Conference: Boca Raton, FL, United States
Authors: Alexis Long, MS. (South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, US)
Jennifer Benning, PhD. (South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, US)
Christopher Shearer, PhD. (South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, US)
Andrea Surovek, PhD. (South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, US)
Stuart Kellogg, PhD. (South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, US)
Full Paper: #465

Abstract:

Future engineers must be able to incorporate sustainability into all aspects of their designs to meet the increasing demands for the world’s resources. Consequently, engineering educators have been challenged to integrate sustainability into existing curricula. Sustainability is a particularly complex problem requiring innovation, which often stems from diversity. Service learning programs have been shown to be an attractive and effective method to blend sustainability into engineering education curricula while also encouraging diversity in engineering. In particular, Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) is a well-established service-learning program at 24 universities that has been known to accomplish this by presenting engineering in social context and engaging students in designing solutions to real world problems. This paper describes the complex problem of sustainability and its relationship with diversity and student attitudes in engineering, demonstrates the EPICS program’s ability to promote sustainability and diversity in engineering, presents a research plan to evaluate its effectiveness, and provides preliminary results.